Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/rice1kornblau012709.html
UNITED NATIONS, January 27 -- The UN press corps was buzzing Monday for the arrival of Susan Rice, the Obama Administration's choice for Ambassador to the UN. In the jostle at the Security Council stakeout while Ms. Rice met with Ban Ki-moon, journalists tried questions on each other. "Given your role in the genocide in Rwanda, what will you do about Darfur?" suggested one boyish reporter. "Since you fiddled while Rwanda burned," added another.
Arrangements were made for who would ask the first question -- there was no agreement among the media, but the US Mission even suggested that Gaza would be a good one. And Gaza was in fact asked, twice, like Darfur and Iran. Ms. Rice declined however to answer a shouted question about Somalia, which she told Congress is not ready for a peacekeeping mission, complex or not. And the three questioners she called on did not raise the slaughter in the Congo, nor what should happen with captured rebel Laurent Nkunda.
Inner City Press was asked, who will the new US spokesperson be? Word on the street, which the US Mission on Tuesday declined to confirm or to deny, is that the choice is zeroing in on one Mark Kornblau, currently employed by Zagat's as, among other things, a taste tester as well as Director of Communications.
Kornblau has previously been a spokesman for candidates John Edwards in 2007 (click here for his quote for Edwards on health care) and John Kerry in 2004, for Senators Evan Bayh and Debbie Stabenow, and a certain Congressman Wu. The significance, sources say, is that he does not come from within the State Department. And at the UN there are near-nightly diplomatic receptions, most recently for Sudan, to please a taste tester's buds.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/rice1kornblau012709.html
